Even when North Carolina hit the ‘Cats where it hurt the most, they still showed memorable effort across the board.
Throughout the 2025 season, Northwestern lacrosse constantly faced one million-dollar question: whether it could develop adequate offensive depth. That question was never really addressed.
That’s not to discredit the numerous scorers on Northwestern’s team, who had their fair share of strong performances throughout the season. But there’s no denying that Madison Taylor did much of the heavy lifting — she totaled 109 goals and 49 assists on the season and had nearly twice as many points as her teammates. Revolving around Taylor as the offensive epicenter was sustainable for most of the season, to a remarkable degree. She averaged a whopping 5.19 goals per game coming into Sunday. Even against a Boston College team deeper than Northwestern in the semifinals, Taylor scored or assisted eight of the Wildcats’ 12 goals to propel them to the title game.
However, this heliocentric offense doesn’t work against the nation’s number one team and top-ranked defense. And ultimately, that lack of depth was the reason why Northwestern fell 12-8 to North Carolina in the NCAA championship game.
“What I do is not without my defense. My saves come from them giving me the shots I want to see,” UNC goalie Betty Nelson said after Sunday’s match, where she stopped eight Northwestern shots. “Today they came out and just absolutely terrorized Northwestern, so it made it really easy for me to do my job.”
The ‘Cats scored just eight goals against the Tar Heels, tied for their lowest offensive output of the season (the other instance was the Big Ten tournament championship against Maryland, a much less potent offense). Only four goals came before the 7:45 mark in the fourth quarter, when North Carolina had a six-goal lead and the game was already beyond reach. All Sunday long, the Wildcats couldn’t get going.
Part of Northwestern’s offensive struggles can be traced to its typically dominant draw unit, which only won seven in the circle compared to UNC’s 17. Even when the Wildcats did have the ball, the Tar Heels didn’t let them go anywhere. North Carolina forced the ‘Cats into either turnovers or bad shots, to the point where they were barely getting over the restraining line. Niki Miles and Riley Campbell, Northwestern’s second and third-highest scorers, combined for zero points.
And Taylor, who the ‘Cats counted on to drive things in the semi-finals, had no room to breathe. She was the main target of UNC’s “sliding defense” and often had multiple defenders on her. She got just three shots off and recorded six turnovers. Although the NCAA Division I single-season goals leader did what she could as a facilitator, putting up four assists, Taylor was held scoreless for the first time in her career since March 10, 2023.
“It’s really hard to play just straight up one-on-one defense against someone like Madison Taylor,” UNC head coach Jenny Levy said. “She’s too good, she’s too powerful, she’s such a great athlete and she’s a great finisher. And you can’t leave any of your teammates out to dry when she had the ball.”
With Northwestern’s offensive engines shut down and its flow disrupted, the ‘Cats could only score goals in transition plays when the Tar Heel defense wasn’t set up. Even with the Wildcat defense holding North Carolina to its lowest-scoring total of the season (tied with its regular-season matchup against Boston College), its arsenal of weapons like Chloe Humphrey, Ashley Humphrey and Eliza Osburn could not be stopped.
That said, the way Northwestern made things a four-goal game even with its offensive struggles, against such a loaded team, is a testament to its fight. Sam Smith and Aditi Foster were fired up after scoring fourth-quarter goals, highlighting the team’s “it’s not over until it’s over” attitude that helped them erase a five-goal deficit in the semifinal against Boston College. Defensive players like Jane Hansen, Delaney Sweitzer and Sammy White put up the performances of their lives to hold the fort down and keep the game close.
Sweitzer, who was denied a national championship appearance in her final two seasons at Syracuse, made the most of her chance on the biggest stage. She recorded a Northwestern single-game program record of 17 saves and gave the ‘Cats additional chances time and time again. Sweitzer’s performance put her on the Final Four all-tournament team.
“I came into this game knowing I already won no matter what the results were,” Sweitzer said. “I love this sport. I got a bonus year, Kelly [Amonte-Hiller] and Scott [Hiller] and Charlie [Leonard] took a chance with me and brought me into this program for a really short time, so I knew I was going to leave it out there. Our team has pure belief. And I mean, the results weren’t obviously what we wanted, but I know I won in the end.”
Hansen, who had four ground balls and five caused turnovers and was named onto the all-tournament team alongside Sweitzer and Taylor, echoed a similar sentiment. Despite the loss and her defensive performances, she used her post-game press conference to reflect on her six seasons at Northwestern, which finally came to a close on Sunday.
After sitting out the 2022 season due to injury and coming off the bench in 2023, Hansen grew into one of the nation’s best defenders in her final two years at Northwestern, culminating in earning All-American honors in 2025. And in her last career game, she left it all on the line for her team.
“Believing myself was something that I struggled with in the early years of my career, but Kelly definitely instilled a ton of belief in me,” Hansen said. “Having an injury my junior season allowed me to rediscover my love for the game. I had my teammates and all the support in the world to inject that belief in me. And I think just as my years went on, I’ve been able to have a little more confidence and lean on others.”
Sweitzer and Hansen’s words are a reminder to look at things from a big-picture angle. Even though North Carolina struck Northwestern’s Achilles’ heel on the biggest stage, it doesn’t erase the team’s ability to, as it says all the time, “love the hard fight” — both on Sunday and throughout the entire season. By making it to the season’s final game, Northwestern far exceeded the preseason expectations of a team that lost seven starters the year prior and was forced to recalibrate.
Even though the history books will stamp Northwestern’s season ending with a loss, the valiance it displayed to get to that point should not be forgotten.
“We made it to the last game of the season, which we can be proud of,” Sweitzer said. “At the end of the day, no one’s gonna remember this. We’re just gonna remember the people next to us from left and right in the locker room and on the field.”